sixthiterationlogs | ψ colors in autumn so bright before they lose it all

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ψ colors in autumn so bright before they lose it all | OPEN

WHO: Finnick Odair
WHERE: By the river and at the Inn in 6I
WHEN: November 4
OPEN TO: EVERYONE
WARNINGS: N/A

Being married hasn't actually changed much. Finnick and Annie have been living together since they arrived here, and they've long ago given up the pretense of being anything less than devoted lovers. Functionally, they've lived like husband and wife for years, in private, and in Panem it was only in public that they pretended to be less than that, when they'd had to lie to the public and the media for the sake of Finnick's Victor narrative.

All it's changed here is the fact that now he wears a ring woven of rabbit-leather on his left hand, and Annie wears a matching one on hers. That sort of makeshift ring isn't uncommon in the poorer parts of District Four, where not everybody can afford jewelry, because food is more pressing, even as a new household comes together. In a way, this place is similar: no break from the business of survival can be afforded for the luxury of being newlyweds. Like in the districts travel restrictions and cost prevent most people traveling far on their honeymoon, confinement here means there's no time to stop, and the day after the wedding they'd been back gathering and fishing and caring for their birds. If a little later than normal.

Finnick misses summer. The leaves have been turning over the last few weeks, and they're falling now, crunching underfoot, slick with frost in the early mornings as he makes his way down the river. It's cold enough that he, used to coastal, tropical weather, has taken to wearing the winter clothing he'd been given the previous year. Today, because he's heading down the river, he's wearing a heavy cabled sweater and the he's carrying gloves in his pockets to put on after he's had his hands in the river.

He stops about halfway between the village and the waterfall, next to an old, tall tree that forks into two magnificent crowns and steps across to a particular spot where the river eddies past some rocks. He tugs on the cord that connects to a fish trap and hauls it out, only to find the trap empty, a hole smashed in it by something that the river's carried along. That means less fish, and more time spent, because he has to go find some sticks pliant enough to mend the trap with.

Anyone who happens across him by the river that morning will find Finnick with an oddly-shaped basket in his lap, weaving sticks into and around a hole in one side. But he's still vigilant; he looks up each time he hears footsteps, and if a knife happens to be close by, it's because it's useful for working with the wood.

Later, after the trap's fixed, a somewhat damp Finnick makes his way to the Inn, where he strips off his sweater and hangs it off a chair near the fire to give it a chance to dry, leaving him in just his now very well-worn red scrubs pants and shirt.

And he'll be staying by the fire until the sweater is dry. It's warm there.

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Hawke ventures out into the forest nearly every day to hunt. Today she has already been through that part of her routine. The river seems her this time mostly because she needs something else to do to keep herself occupied through the long, arduous hours and no one seems to have any menial task for her to do like they would in Kirkwall. All day, every day she would run errands for people in Kirkwall. Not so much here and she can't decide if she likes that change or not.

Still, for some reason she tends to meet people by this river and the sight of someone else here doesn't faze her at all. She lifts a hand in greeting, glad at least that her voice works properly again.

"All that weaving is making me tired," she jokes lightly from where she's been finding odd stones to step and jump on, like she's playing a game of 'Lava' or something.

He's been aware of the woman's approach from a distance -- jumping from stone to stone is hardly the most subtle way of moving along the riverbank, and Finnick's good at paying attention to what's going on around him even when he doesn't look like he is. It's an important survival skill in the Capitol, though he'd learned it before then, for the arena. Most victors know what's going on around them, the ones that still have their wits awake and undrowned by drink or drugs.

So he's not surprised when he hears her voice, though he only looks up to study her more fully when she speaks. He's seen her around but they haven't met yet, not properly. (Finnick's seen most people here around, because he pays so much attention to who's coming and going in his own careful way.)

"Yeah, it'd be better if the things wouuldn't break," he agrees. "Not a fisher, I take it?"

Moana missed the summer. She hated the cold and the winter. If last year had been any indication, it meant that there would soon be piles of snow that climbed over the crest of her head. She had arrived in the winter which meant that it had almost been a full year since she swam up through the fountain. She had missed a birthday and probably more in that time though it was hard to think about when she was focusing on the cold and the dread that it left in the pit of her stomach.

There was nothing good about the cold weather.

Moana was wearing her island dress but with a pair of boots and a cloak that she had been gifted. She didn't like wearing jackets because they restricted the moments of her arms too much. If worse came to worse she could slip out of the cloak. An empty fishing net was slung over her shoulder as she stepped up next to the river. She paused at Finnicks work, recognizing the trap.

"Do you need help with that?" Like Finnick, fishing was second nature to Moana and if he needed a hand to save time then she'd gladly offer it.

He'd traveled in the winter before. That was when the Victory Tour was, when the victor (and their mentor) of each year's Hunger Games left their home to tour the districts and end up in the Capitol before a triumphant return to their district. It was one of the social events of the year in the Capitol, and that meant Finnick's attendance was requested. It had been a long time since he'd spent a winter without the demands of the Capitol until he found himself here, and the colder time of the year still had a figurative as well as a literal darkness in his mind.

The work was good, though, life here honest in a way nothing could be for the victors in Panem. Mending the trap was something a fisherman would do, so it helped to combat the things the chill made him think about.

Moana's approach, though, was welcome enough. He liked the girl, for all she reminded him a little of too many too eager kids back in District Four. She'd grown up by the sea, like him, and she seemed to have learned to do many of the same things for herself that he did before he'd gone to learn to kill instead.

"Sure," he said, greeting her with a grin that belied the places his mind had been wandering. "Thanks. Something in the current must have hit it."

Moana closed the distance between them and took a seat at his side. She placed her net on the ground next to her. She wasn't worried about her own task. There were plenty of hours left in the day and she wanted to help Finnick first. Next to him, Killian was the only person who understood Moana's affection for the ocean. Finnick hadn't been able to sail away from his home either, so maybe he understood a little more.

There was darkness in Finnick's past. Moana didn't know what it was but she saw the occasional ghost shadow his features. She couldn't help him but she could offer a distraction from whatever it was that he was thinking about.

"Maybe a rock." She reached forward and gently tested the broken part of the trap. "Or a large fish? It looks like this pieces is bent out, not in." It could have still been a rock but Moana thought the break was a little strange. "I made some traps but I put them down towards the ocean in the other village to see if there are fish there." She looked up at Finnick with a curious glance. "Have you seen it? The ocean there." It wasn't really an ocean but Moana didn't know that.

The only people Moana's age Finnick had spent much time with were people caught up in the Games: either the older tributes or the younger victors, or the Careers the victors had illegally trained until the Academy was shut down by the Peacekeepers in retaliation for the district's revolt. Seeing her and knowing he wasn't preparing her to face the arena, that she hadn't been through it and wouldn't go through it, touched something in him he hadn't even realized was there, and would barely be able to explain, some sort of yearning for a life he hadn't known existed until this place. A life in which children didn't go through what they did in Panem, in which people didn't live in that same constant fear.

After time, even the fears of this place had faded, though he was still wary and vigilant. It had been a long time now with no outright threats, no attempts on his life or punishments for his behavior, and that was an improvement.

"Yeah, could be a fish. Maybe I didn't get everything right, I'm used to fishing the ocean, not rivers." He knew a huge amount about fishing, but his experience had almost all been in ocean waters, apart from the weeks he'd been in the arena. He knew how to work out currents, but predicting hazards was a skill developed over time.

He grinned when she mentioned the ocean. He wasn't sure if that was what it was -- nobody seemed to have managed to get very far along the coastline to be able to tell -- but it was saltwater, and it was good to have here, somehow widening their horizons more than the canyon walls had allowed.

"It's great, right? You catch any fish over there?"

"Not yet. I am going to check the traps I set out tomorrow. I can let you know when I get back." Her hope was that the fish from the ocean would be larger in comparison to the fish that she found in the river. Her traps are currently moored close to the shore but with each experiment, Moana sailed out a little further, always keeping the shore in site as she placed her traps. She hadn't had anything to use as floats and ended up using funny shaped sticks along with the rope she had fashioned herself. She only had two traps right now but she hoped to make more.

Her fingers skillfully press, molded and weaved Finnick's trap back together. She had seen a break like this before and it had happened when the trap hadn't been settled properly on the river bed. "It might help if you put a few rocks in your trap. The current won't take it and the fish will have a harder time breaking out." There was nothing that could be done about rocks and debris being pushed down stream except to sink the trap deeper. Most anything that could pick up that kind of speed would be floating along the river current.

Moana paused and looked up at Finnick. "I went out there." She was fairly sure that he knew about her boat project but just in case she decided to explain. "Last month, me and a few others built a boat. The ocean didn't feel like the ocean or it did but it stretched." She was having trouble explaining this much she hoped that Finnick might understand. "It was the same with the shore. Like no matter where I went, there would be no end."

"I'd appreciate it."

He's curious what she'll find. With luck, maybe there are saltwater fish there, like the fish he'd grown up knowing how to find and trap and spear and catch. Most of what he'd learned he'd been able to transfer here easily, just like he'd done in the arena ten years ago, but he's a marine fisherman by training and experience, not a freshwater one. He knows the seas better than the river.

He watches Moana's hands as she works at the trap, and she turns out to be just as skilful as if she'd come from District Four. He'd thought she probably would be; there's a way that she speaks about water and fishing that reminds him of home, of the people he'd been around before he went to the Careers to make himself famous.

"Think weights are a good idea," he agrees. It's funny, the way all of Panem had come to view him as an expert fisherman because of what he could do with a trident, when so much more of life in District Four was this: setting traps, or lines or nets from trawlers or smaller boats. He knows a lot, but it's nothing to what Mags or the other old, retired fishers know. Or even what an experienced fisher from another place could tell him.

Finnick is testing the strength of the weave on the rest of the trap, feeling the give in the wood, as Moana continues and starts to talk about the sea -- or lake, or whatever it is -- near the second village they'd found. His expression is thoughtful for a moment, eyes fixing briefly on her face before they turn back to their work.

"We're hemmed in by the canyon, nobody can get out that way. Wonder if that ocean is the same."

An ocean can make an effective border: anyone from District Four knows that, between Peacekeeper patrols, limits on fuel for boats, and dark rumors of what might lie out to sea beyond the acceptable distance from shore. After all, the land boundaries of the district are fenced, the Capitol would hardly leave the ocean as an escape route. Here, in this arena-like place, their Gamekeepers would be able to turn them around, hem them in, make the currents send them in circles.

Moana nodded her head in response before turning her attention back to Finnick's trap. She had grown up by the water and while she had a good idea of what she was doing, it continued to require all or most of her concentration. If she was going to help him fix the trap then she was going to do it correctly.

Her fingers were nimble though she worked slow enough that Finnick would be able to see what she was doing. Moana had fished in the lagoon before but a lot of their fish also came from the streams on the island, water not unlike the river here. "I'm almost done." She twisted a big of rope around the area and then tied it loosely so that trap had some give where the original point of the break was.

"This should make sure that it doesn't break the same way. If anything hard hits it it'll spring a bit and slip through the holes or sink to the bottom of the trap." She showed Finnick was she was talking about by pulling at her little patch.

"Do you think something might be out there?" Moana had gone to look but she realized that she didn't know how far to go before turning around. She would have been able to go further if she went on her own but with a second person she would have fun out of food. "How long would it take to reach a new place?"

Maui had taught her to sail on the ocean but if their overseers could control where the sun was, could they also control the position of the stars?

Unlike many of the residents who prefer the warmer climates, Ned finds a renewed sense of vigor whenever he steps into the more frigid air. He has finally been able to air out the two fur-lined cloaks he'd been gifted earlier in the year, just when the tide of summer was upon them. They have been sitting in his wardrobe all that time, and there is a sense of elation that comes along with his being able to finally wear them. The cloaks, combined with the leather set he'd received in one of those strange boxes at his door, make him feel a little more connected to home, and if he closes his eyes while standing in the crisp morning air, letting the cold sting his nostrils, he could almost convince himself that he was standing back in the yard of Winterfell.

Almost.

After going about his normal morning duties, he finds himself back at the Inn - offering to dress and butcher whatever game might be awaiting its fate as a stew, as well as dropping off the few things he'd managed to catch or find that morning. He takes the opportunity to sit close to the hearth, allow himself the chance to lose himself in the flames for just a breath. It's in moments such as these that Ned's heart aches for Winterfell, for its familiar hallways, for its Godswood, for his children running about. He misses the familiar sound of clanging metal, horse hooves, and the smell of baking bread.

He's brought out of his memory by the approach of someone also taking advantage of the warmth the fire's provided, and with a few blinks back to the present moment, Ned glances over at the stranger. To a man like Ned, he seems like a newly made man grown, barely over his 16th Name Day. There is something familiar about his features, though he cannot yet place it, still hazy with his daydream.

"I hope my being here doesn't bother you. If it does, just allow me to say for a few more moments, and then I will be on my way."

Annie doesn't look like much of an intelligence-gatherer. She's quiet and shy and prone to startle easily, but that seemingly timorous nature means that she can watch, unnoticed, and that when she is noticed, it is easy to assume that she's not paying attention to what's going on around her. But like so many victors, Annie watches, her big green eyes and their intense gaze often far more focused than they seem. She sees details, always has, and what she sees, she reports back to her husband. And she'd reported back her encounter with the man, older than many of the people here, formal in his deportment and address, who'd offered to help her gather reeds. Ned Stark, relative of the other Starks here. There's a family resemblance that Finnick might have noticed even without Annie's description, but that matters little, since he has Annie's description, and also her impression of the man.

Ned Stark had been kind to her, and generous with his time. Finnick pays attention to how people behave towards her, and if Ned Stark could help her unasked with her reed-gathering, Finnick can share the warmth of the fire with him.

Finnick shakes his head as he crosses the room towards the fire and reaches for the hem of his knit sweater to strip it off.

"No bother. I just wanted to dry off a bit." Finnick lays the sweater out on a chair, then moves closer to the fire. His steps are easy, confident with training and, more than that, with years of playing the part he'd long ago adopted in public, that still hasn't slipped away after so many months in this place.

"If the winters here are to be as the winters back home, I believe it will be continually difficult to dry off completely," Ned replies, glancing over at the man with some subtle curiosity, before allowing himself to be drawn back into the dancing light of the flames. As odd as it is, there's something in Ned's bones that aches for the dampness that winter brings - the chill, the grey skies, the frostbitten haze.

He dreams of home more often these days, and he knows the chilled air has much to do with that.

"I don't believe we've met," he offers, tone pleasant but cordial. "I'm Ned Stark." His tongue always flinches with the long-impressed habit of releasing a series of titles after his family name, but has learnt to still itself while introducing himself to those here in the village. It is almost as if he has more to say, yet cannot drive the words from his mouth.

The man is much older than Finnick, and in other circumstances, that would make him wary after too much time spent in the Capitol, but it would be hard to seem further from the artifices of the Capitol than this man, the warmth in his voice and the way his hair and beard seem to grow in something like their natural shape. And, as he confirms his identity with an introduction, this is the man who'd helped Annie despite having no knowledge or experience of what she was doing.

"Finnick Odair," Finnick replies. He notices the way Ned seems to be considering saying something more, but Finnick too had spent years saying something else after his name: victor of the sixty-fifth Hunger Games, something he's glad not to have to say here, where it means nothing to most people.

"I'm used to wet summers," Finnick continues, in explanation, though he has no real need to justify himself, even if Ned sounds like he's more used to the sort of cold weather they get here than the fisherman is. "Not ready for another wet winter yet." He reinforces those words by stepping closer to the fire, letting the warmth soak into his clothes to chase away the cold.

"Finnick Odair," Ned repeats, the feeling of the name on his tongue familiar. "You are wed to Annie, with the copper hair?" He assumes that she would have taken on the Odair name, though he's learnt (with some difficulty) that there are many here who do not hail from a place remotely similar to Westeros. Perhaps they come from a land in which they retain their separate family names.

There is a fondness in his recollection and brief description of the woman, faintly reminiscent of how an uncle might speak of a niece.

"I met her not too many moons ago, down at the river's edge. She spoke quite fondly of you, as one would hope," he remarks with a quiet breeze of a laugh. Although his heart aches constantly for his beloved Catelyn, he can take solace in knowing there are those here who can still look at their wife or husband with such love and adoration.

"Would you mind recounting your experiences of the winters here? I've yet to do so myself, having arrived only eight months prior."

"Just recently married," Finnick says, and the word is still so new to him that he can't help the smile, just like he often can't when he's talking to people here about Annie. That's less new than it was when he first came here -- by the turn of the seasons, it's been about a year since he and Annie began openly admitting their relationship. They haven't decided yet whether Annie will call herself Annie Odair, or Annie Cresta or whether she'll combine their names, but Annie with the copper hair is a perfect description that matches only her.

"She told me she met you," Finnick responds. "She was grateful you helped with the reeds."

That sort of generosity reminds him of home, not of the Capitol, of District Four, where the older fishers would help the younger, if they needed it, if they'd lost members of their family or had damage to their boats. It's an unthinking sort of kindness, helping without expecting something in return, and Finnick's still not used to that being the way at least some of the people here seem to act.

Finnick crosses his arms across his chest, hugging the warmth of the fire into his heart.

"I was here for the last winter." He gives a brief, dry smile. "Don't think I've ever been so cold in my life. Only seen that much snow once in my life before, but then I had warm clothes, more than I have here. It got hard, harder to find food, and colder. Took a lot of work to heat these houses for the winter."

"Aye? You married while you were .. here, then?" Ned finds the admission somewhat surprising - not that people might find love in such a place but that they'd wish to partake in ceremonial activities in a place other than home. But perhaps they've come to view this village as such, making the decision to wed easier. He thinks to his wedding with Catelyn, how she'd been nothing more than a stranger even after she'd earned the title of 'wife,' how nervous he'd been. How, with many years shared between them, he's come to love her with a strength he can only begin to fathom.

It feels like a dull blade, piercing squarely at the center of his chest, to think of her now.

"Such a trivial thing," Ned says, consistently modest and tight-lipped at his virtues. "I was grateful for the company."

The recounting of winters in the village is a bit troublesome, but it isn't all that different from what Ned is used to back home. Of course, things were different there; he could reach out to neighboring steads and other houses for supplies, if needed. He could call upon his bannermen to provide for Winterfell, knowing he'd return the favor in some way or another. There are no steads or bannermen here, and Ned is no longer in Winterfell.

"How much harder was it to procure food? Was there enough lumber to support the fires and hearths in the cabins?"

Kate is cleaning when Odair comes in, and she does little more then give him a friendly smile and wave. The sideboard and cupboards aren't, to most ways of thinking, the most important things around, but they get used and so they get dirty. So, she cleans. These houses, these buildings, they all need maintenance. She has some sewing to do later, and if Odair is still here, and wants some company, maybe she'll talk to him then.

Miss Hoppity, in contrast, has no time for this work nonsense. Not currently, anyway. The rats and mice are for night; day has people, and day means that these people will pay court to her as the queen of this building, as benefits a lady of her dignity and grace. Which is to say that Finnick gets a plump tabby sauntering over to him, and taps his knee to get his attention.

It's almost a part of the routine, now, slipping in and slipping past without really stopping to chat, because he still doesn't feel entirely comfortable here, like he hasn't felt comfortable anywhere in a room with people he doesn't know to their hearts. He still feels best with his back to a wall, or to the fireplace, and it's been that way for so many years now that he thinks it will never change. Finnick may feel easier about the people here now, but he's still waiting for the danger that's so constantly at the edges of his mind.

That's why he has his back to the fire when the cat comes in, and he has a full view of her confident swagger as she comes over to him and bumps his leg.

"I'd have thought you'd be curled up in front of the fire already," he says. "Or is that coat of yours warm enough?"

He bends down, offering Miss Hoppity his hand to sniff, or lick. It probably smells like fish, and he wonders whether the cat will be annoyed at the lack of fish actually in his hand, or pleased by the smell.

Miss Hoppity regards him regally, then with a gracious air she sniffs his hand then butts her head into it. Her instructions are clear: Human, scritches are in order.

Kate, observing the exchange, just laughs softly.

"She has to do her rounds," she says. "Not that she does them to any schedule I can make heads or tails of. But she'll rouse herself from her adorin' subjects or her comfy fireplace to do her patrols, and greet people. So, I suppose Odair you should feel privileged that she finds you worthy of her attention."

Humans are, after all, more entertaining than fireplaces, which seems to mostly win out with the cat over merely 'warmth'.

He's never had a cat, but Finnick has known enough of the strays who hung around the docks in District Four to recognize when a cat wants its ears scratched. He gives Miss Hoppity a little smile, then bends his knees, squatting down to give her the scratches she's looking for.

"If I'm more interesting than the fire on a day like this, I think I do feel privileged," he says, turning his head to one side to speak to Kelly. "Or maybe she's just been in here where it's warm, instead of outside hauling fish out of the river."

The river's cold, too: everything's cold, too cold for a man who'd been raised on the coast of District Four, who didn't even like the Capitol in winter, let alone District Seven or Twelve.

Edited 2017-11-28 11:34 (UTC)

Odair's scritches are apparently acceptable, and Miss Hoppity presses her head and neck firmly against his fingers. Any stopping will, naturally, be met by an indigent stare and another insistent pat to whatever body part is nearest.

"She doesn't go outside that much. Too many people and mice in here, I think," Kate comments, thoughtful enough that it's clearly she's only just realising this. "Might be she's a bit scared of it now. Not that I blame her with this weather we've got.

And it's only goin' t'get worse," she odds, gloomily. "Why we were all plonked down somewhere with this much snow is just beyond me. Plenty of isolated places without such nonsense."

Snow, just.... Snow. Snow is something to observe on the higher mountains and hinterlands during winter, not something she, Kate, is now forced to live with.

Being more familiar with strays than pets, the idea of a cat that rarely goes outside is an unusual one to Finnick, who's mostly known cats as scavengers around the docks looking for scraps, or shipboard companions to keep the rats from messing with nets and supplies. They always did like being warm, though, so Kelly might be right.

"Take it you're not used to this sort of weather either?" Finnick asks from his crouched position on the floor. He shifts onto his knees, kneeling by the cat so that he can keep scratching her ears, which is apparently what Miss Hoppity wants.

"I'd have preferred being dropped somewhere warmer," he agrees. "I don't like snow."

That's only partly because of the cold: there are also plenty of bad memories associated with snow, with the dragged-out torment of Annie's Victory Tour, with train trips through the mountains to the Capitol. The cold is bad enough.

It is a strange idea for Kate herself - maybe grand social ladies have pretty little lapcats that never go outside, but all the ones she's known were out prowling both barn and bush. But maybe she has little blame but for herself: she'd loved the kitten she'd received, and not knowing this strange world hadn't wanted to let her much out of her sight if they were outside. Well, at least Miss Hoppity doesn't seem upset.

"Oh, goodness no. Never seen proper snow 'til I came here. There's snow up in the mountain country, where I'm from, but I've never been that high up in winter. Now, I won't say that it never got cold out on Ma's farm, but it was more.... wind and misery, rather than the white squeaky nonsense we got here." She pulls a face. "Now, at the risk of soundin' right empty-headed, I have t'admit I'm fair disappointed with what snow's actually like. All those books and songs portray it as.... somehow grander. Crisp snow, or soft snow. Not, 'you're gonna sound like you're wearing rubber boots on a rubber floor'."

"And not wet."

Not that Finnick minds being wet, in itself, but he prefers to be wet because he's been swimming, or because there's rain falling to break the humidity on a summer day, or rolling in from the sea with the smell of a freedom he can never have, not because it's so cold that the rain is frozen and lying in drifts on the ground. It had been bad touring the districts in the cold, though his stylist had of course made him winter-appropriate clothing, and it hadn't been too bad.

Last winter, though, with so few clothes until the warm things he was gifted and frequent snowstorms, he'd seen a lot more of snow than he'd wanted to.

"Don't blame you for being disappointed. It looks pretty but that's about the only good thing about it. Doesn't snow much where I'm from either."

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